


Rescue and Return (part 2)

by circlecross



Category: due South
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-14
Updated: 2017-09-14
Packaged: 2018-12-29 18:26:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12090816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/circlecross/pseuds/circlecross
Summary: The second part of the story.





	Rescue and Return (part 2)

“You said you had a daughter?”  
“Yes, Chloe. She is great. She does get a bit fed up with me trying to teach her everything though”.  
Ben let a smile curl his mouth. “I’m sure she enjoys it really. I used to enjoy us learning together”. He blushed slightly, and Alyssa remembered how easy it had been to make him blush and how she had enjoyed making it happen. “So where is she?”  
“She is with her father and his partner”.  
Ben tried to be casual about his enquiries, but he had had a rush of excitement from her response.   
“So…you’re not…ummm..you’re not with her father?”  
“No, he is gay. I carried a child for him, but I have lots of access to her. It is a serendipitous arrangement, when I am travelling. We all get on well, and Chloe enjoys different experiences, with lots of attention…”  
Ben had suddenly felt overwhelmed. The prick of tears hot behind his eyes, and a wave of tiredness overcame him. He rubbed the bridge of his nose with one hand, his campaign hat still held in the other.  
“Ben, are you sure you are well? Did I hit you too hard?” she looked genuinely concerned, which made him feel worse.  
“Chloe sounds very lucky, to be surrounded by love like that”.  
“She has no more or less than she deserves – she was planned for and we knew we wanted her to feel wanted. Luck doesn’t really come into it. She may have a bit of stick about her dad being gay, but we are raising her to know it doesn’t matter. You can’t help who you love”   
Ben glanced sharply at her, wondering if she was directing that at him in some way. She put her arms round him then. She could feel him trembling.   
“It is really a great surprise, Ben, really great to see you. You’re the last person I would have expected to walk through the door, it has been such a long time”. She felt his tears against her neck, as he tucked his face away into her. “Ben, what’s wrong – talk to me! Why have you travelled all the way up here?”  
He gave a shuddering gasp, ashamed of the tears that were spilling, but he couldn’t stop them. He didn’t know what to say, what to feel. Memories, emotions, lost opportunities, all were vying for his attention. She tried to pull away, but his grip was tight on her, so she relaxed into the embrace to give him the time he needed.  
“I’ve grown so used to losing people, I don’t know how to feel when I find someone” he muttered into her shoulder.  
*** (an aside)***  
She looked at him. It had been thirty years since she had last seen him and he wore his age well. Always handsome, if unreachable, he had filled out a little, lines were etched deeper into his face and his hair was streaked with silver. She wanted to ask him so much, tell him so much. She didn’t know where to begin. They had been so close, and she regretted losing touch. He had been like a big brother, and she had felt so comfortable with him. He had been shy and quiet and clever and a target for teasing. She had been feisty and passionate and defended him with her voice and her fists and her feet. They had spurred each other on to heights of learning, and in the isolated community she had loved him fiercely, if platonically. She was eager to hear about his life, delighted to see him. She searched his face, frowning at the flickers of pain in his eyes as he learned of her daughter, then the tears that formed when she told him that she was single. She hugged him, smelling the woodsmoke and frost that clung to him, that reminded her of night skies and rough blankets and a childhood spent outdoors, adventuring. She felt his muscles tense as he held on, his breath hot against her neck. She relaxed against him. She felt safe, back in his embrace, like he had never been away. Her big brother was back. 

The breath caught in his throat. He saw past the years, past the slight weight she had put on with age, and childbirth, and saw the girl he had spent nights trying not to dream of. The girl he had listened to while she slept, who had sang incessant dreadful pop songs when he had tried to be brooding, who had recited poetry and Shakespeare to the night sky. He had loved her to distraction, but had known she wasn’t for him. Known she had been brought into the family to be treated like a sister, and so he had to curb his ardour, despite there being only a curtain separating them in the small bedroom in the cabin they stayed in. Snowed in, on occasion, they had only each other for company, and had to huddle together sharing warmth and candlelight. He had learned every contour of her face, every splash within her irises, every freckle on her nose. He had never forgotten. And here she was, and she had lived a life away from him. He was terrified to hear about her life, in case he was not welcome within it. He had nothing to share, having remained almost celibate in the thirty years they had been apart. A couple of relationships, ill-fated, with unsuitable women. His heart had not been in it, even if his loins had. He had fancied himself in love with them, but knew it was a flame that burned bright and hot, and out. There had always been a piece of him missing, he was incomplete to give to them, and now he knew what the piece had been. Her. She overwhelmed him, as he suddenly remembered who he was, who he had been. It wasn’t the landscape he had missed, it was her. He steeled himself as she hugged him. He was already feeling close to tears after hearing about her daughter, and the relief that she was single made him feel half-crazed with hope. For what? A second chance? His life seemed to hinge around those. As he breathed in the scent of her, familiar and comforting, he knew he couldn’t risk losing her again.   
***  
He told her that he had a half-sister, and this had made his loneliness less acute, knowing there was someone out there linked to him. He had visited, and there had been some phone calls, but he had been torn between his desire for solitude, which he was used to, and company which he occasionally craved. He couldn’t easily reconcile the two longings.  
He had enjoyed his expedition with Ray K (he still found it hard to think of him as Stanley), and been warmed to see his friend become close to his half-sister, but still…his own hollowness remained. He had spent another 5 years in remote outposts, trying to work out what it was he wanted or needed. The death of Diefenbaaker had removed another part of his defences, and he hadn’t felt ready to replace his canine companion with another. He had stayed awhile in Inuvik again, drinking in his childhood home – the rainbow houses, and the Sunrise festival. He had travelled up to Tuktoyuktuk on the ice road, once more revelling in memories before they melted away. When stationed with a patrol he had found their chatter empty, and so had reluctantly delved into fledgling social media, feeling like a fraud, as he didn’t really have anyone he felt necessary to connect with. Until one name surfaced, and he endeavoured to track her down. Once he found her, a small piece of a jigsaw he hadn’t realised was incomplete, fell into place.  
And so here he was.  
He remembered Meg Thatcher saying that he was at home in the wilderness, by himself. And for a while he had believed that. For a while he had been content to skate on the thin ice of friendships. But everything made him yearn for what was missing now, and now he knew what it was, he needed to pursue it. Her. Needed to find her.  
She glanced towards the window. “It’s darkening in, Ben. Have you got far to go?”  
He looked puzzled. “I was hoping I could stay here a while. Would that be acceptable?”  
“Oh! Well, of course. I hadn’t expected – I don’t know. Well, never mind. Here we are. Of course you may stay. How did you travel? Have you dogs to attend to?”  
He looked bashful. “I walked”.  
“Where from?”  
“The airfield”.  
“Benton! That’s miles! You should’ve said! You must be exhausted”.  
He shook his head. “You woke me up”, he touched his jaw, making light of the situation, even though he was dropping with tiredness.  
She lit an oil lamp, ( he was glad to see her retaining some of the traditions), and shooed him into the back rooms, reminiscent of the ones he remembered sharing with her.   
“Come on, through to the Bedsit”.  
He liked hearing such a British word in her accent. He allowed her to go back through and double check the locks. He was filling the doorway so she pushed him through.  
***  
Ben had tried to suppress memories in order to continue living each day. He had determined to find the joy in a new day, and celebrate waking up alive in hostile environments. Holding on to “what ifs” made him melancholy. When Victoria had resurfaced in his life, it had almost destroyed him, and he had vowed never to be burned by that flame again. When the ghost of his father left him he knew he had to keep looking forward. Suddenly feeling a yearning for his past had unravelled him, and here he was, regretting the passing of years, but trying to be hopeful that he could create a new tapestry.   
Clumsy to articulate his desires, and unused to giving in to emotion, he felt dizzy in her company. He wanted to drink in all the details of her which were familiar, but at the same time changed forever. The creases beside her eyes suggested a life of laughter, which he longed to hear, longed to get the joke. He marvelled that her body had grown and nurtured another human, but again felt a pang of despair that he had not been there for her, not known about it, not been available to help. He hadn’t known about her pregnancy for twelve years, not been with her for thirty, but now he missed the fact he had not known. She was a completely different person to the one he had known. The years had been snatched away from him, without him realising that he had missed them.  
“Bedsit” was giving grandeur where none existed. It was a small room, with a bed and a chair, and a cooking unit. The bathroom facilities were the communal use ones in the hut. He wasn’t sure where etiquette stood with him sitting uninvited on her bed, or taking the only chair. He stood, feeling awkward, waiting for instruction.   
“Oh, sit down, Ben”, she said as she looked in the small cupboard in the cooking area. He sat in the chair, and skimmed his campaign hat on to the bed. He had a pack with him, and rummaged out a pair of moccassins.   
“Can I help you with anything?” he asked, as he changed his mukluks.  
She handed him a leathery item, and a pair of scissors.  
“You chop, I will stir”.  
“Pemmican?” he exclaimed.  
“Well I am a day from the nearest trader”.  
Ben felt bad. “I will replenish your stocks”.  
“What are your plans? How long are you staying?”  
Forever.  
That was what he wanted to say.  
“I don’t know. Is a week too much of an imposition?”  
“Well…no. We will need some extra supplies. We can get through the week, but I don’t particularly relish dried peas for the rest of the month. I only carry basic supplies – you know how it is. The dogs come first”. Ben remembered the lifestyle well.   
As a teen, he had been lean and rangy, living on rations, and learning to be creative with foraged food and greasy sea birds. He had a hiraeth for the sea buckthorn, samphires and tern that had seemed all too frequent a replacement for the roasted turkeys and hams he saw in American films about Thanksgiving or Christmas. He had thrown himself into the identification of edible plants simply to give himself some variety. It was easier when they travelled through warmer latitudes, and when summer broke the ice sheets. He remembered scouting in forests, trapping and snaring. Guarding the foraging spots like secret lovers. He had encountered aboriginal Canadians, and First people communities, who generally accepted him, for his quiet earnestness and quickness to learn. They acknowledged the dark shadow that hung over him, his inner sadness and questing, and knew that he had been touched by death. When he had insisted on shooting the caribou, accompanied by Quinn, it had taught him a lot about himself, and a lot about symbiosis. He had been humbled that day, and became even quieter. But his spirits lifted a little when they had moved for a time to Inuvik. He had felt closer to his mother there, and even went to community school. He played ice hockey, made friends, enjoyed life. Then another move. Another break with normality. It became less practical to join in, and Ben knew it was futile to be angry, but felt such frustration at having to say goodbye again.  
Another Christmas of unorthodox foodstuffs, another Christmas waiting for Robert to appear, and the pall of unsaid disappointment when he didn’t. Ben was informed that they were to receive a houseguest. Female, and near his age. This piqued his interest in life again. He nodded solemnly to premature admonitions about privacy and behaviour expected. He felt excited mainly because he would have company that would remain with him. He began formulating plans for expedition and adventure.


End file.
